Hospital denies Arafat death reports

Breaking news: The French hospital where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was being treated has denied that he has died. The statement follows reports on Israeli television from French sources that Arafat is 'brain dead'.

Some of Arafat's security and financial powers have been transferred to the Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, an official has said.

Earlier, Palestinian security chiefs had been summoned to an emergency meeting after claims that Yasser Arafat had slipped into a coma.

A statement from the French hospital treating the leader said: "President Yasser Arafat remains in the Percy Military Training Hospital. This statement has been drafted in accordance with the respect for discretion requested by his wife.

"The clinical situation following the first days after (Arafat's) admission has become more complicated.

"The state of health of the patient requires appropriate treatment which necessitated his transfer during the afternoon of Wednesday, November 3, to a unit suitable for his condition."

In response to a question asking whether Mr Arafat had died. "Mr Arafat has not died. Thank you."

Reports dismissed

Leaders had earlier dismissed claims that 75-year-old Arafat was in a critical condition in the French military hospital outside Paris.

The Palestinian PM denied the report, and said that Arafat "is not clinically dead".

President Arafat's health suffered a setback while he was being treated for an unknown illness, reports had said.

An aide said that the Palestinian leader 'smiled' at French President Jacques Chirac when he visited the hospital earlier today.

No successor named

The former guerrilla, loved by most Palestinians and reviled by many Israelis, has named no successor since emerging from exile under interim peace accords with Israel in the early 1990s.

Aides have been keen to present Arafat as still in charge. He has temporarily delegated powers to two men - Palestinian PM Qurie and Abbas.

In his first press conference since re-election, US President George Bush said: "My first reaction is God bless his soul."

"And my second reaction is we will continue to work for a free Palestinian state that's at peace with Israel."